• by Wayne Friedman , August 11, 2008

The night before the expected onslaught of NBC's Beijing Olympics, Fox rode high on the back of another big performance from "So You Think You Can Dance?

The two-hour finale of the summer show on Thursday took in a Nielsen preliminary 3.4 rating/11 share--which, although down from last year's season-ender when it grabbed a 3.7/11, was up a bit in terms of overall viewers: 9.9 million versus 9.6 million.

All this easily gave Fox a strong Thursday night win. Fox took a 3.4/11 to NBC's 2.3/7. CBS was farther down the list at a 1.9/6. ABC was next with a 1.4/4, with CW only earning about half of ABC's numbers, at a 0.7/2.

Second-best to "Dance" on the night was NBC's also strong summer effort "America's Got Talent" in an unusual 9:30 to 11 p.m. Thursday night time period. "Talent" was dinged a bit from the strong "Dance" finale, posting a 2.7/8--down from its usual mid-three ratings efforts. Last week, in its usual Tuesday night 9 p.m. time slot, "Talent" earned a 3.7/10.

CBS' bookended the night with two modestly performing shows--"Big Brother" at 8 p.m., and its new crime-solving effort "Flashpoint" at 10 p.m., both earning a 2.1/7, in a tie for third place among all programs on Thursday. "Brother" was down from a 2.3/8, and "Flashpoint" was up from a 1.9/6 the week before.

Plus, there was another season finale last night, NBC's hard-working "Last Comic Standing," which only moved up to a 2.0/7 from a 1.9/6 the week before.

ABC's original summer scripted effort "Hopkins" fell behind all these shows, but remained the network's highlight of the night--grabbing a 1.7/5 at 10 p.m., the same numbers as a week before.